


Dream Walker

by Blueskullcandy



Series: LU Creative Train (Angst Track) [9]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Experimental Style, Hurt No Comfort, Legend (Linked Universe)-centric, Linked Universe (Legend of Zelda), Not really sure how to tag, oof, sad???, that one hurts to add..., theres some not happy imagery, this is kinda a weird one just letting you know, uhhhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:00:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26660296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blueskullcandy/pseuds/Blueskullcandy
Summary: As for why he's walking…He isn't sure.Legend isn't even sure why he's here.Hell, Legend isn't even sure where here is....And isn't that a disconcerting thought?(LU Creative Train Angst Track piece 10)
Series: LU Creative Train (Angst Track) [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1938178
Comments: 19
Kudos: 112





	Dream Walker

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the LU Creative Train's angst track! This is piece number 10 (the caboose, so to speak)
> 
> Warning for depiction of violence and general sadness!
> 
> Hope you enjoy!!!!

Left. 

Right. 

Left. 

Right. 

Left. 

Right. 

The same motion. Over and over and over and over again. 

He is walking.

That is the only thing Legend can be sure of in the endless abyss of gray he finds himself in.

He is walking. 

He is walking and walking and walking and Legend knows he's walking because he can feel the ground beneath his boots, can feel it supporting his body even though he can not see it with his eyes. He knows he is walking because he can feel his legs move beneath him, can feel the way his weight shifts– _left right left right left right–_ though the scenery around never changes, never progresses from the muted gray-white that expands outward in every direction.

And Legend knows he’s walking because that's what he was doing when he first found himself in this nowhere place of nothing. 

And Legend knows he is walking because he has not stopped since he came into awareness of his predicament. 

Came into awareness of himself. 

As for _why_ he's walking…

He isn't sure. 

Legend isn't even sure why he's _here._

Hell, Legend isn't even sure where _here_ _is._

...

And isn't that a disconcerting thought?

Below him, Legend feels his feet slow slow slow _stop._

And then he is no longer walking. 

His only constant, the only thing he was sure of in this blank infinity, the tiny ounce of control he had been gripping onto slips through his fingers, falling away from his grasp only to be swallowed up by the ocean of unchanging gray that surrounds him. 

Legend is no longer walking. 

Legend is no longer walking and everything still looks the same. Everywhere he looks–o matter how he shifts his head, how he cranes his neck, how many times he blinks his eyes– everywhere is gray.

Above? Gray.

Below? Gray.

Left, right, around, backwards, forwards, 360, it doesn't matter. It’s all gray. 

Legend raises a hand in front of his face. Scar puckered palm. Ring after ring after ring. Fingers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Not blind then. 

And yet, when Legend pulls his hand back away from his face, he is once again met with nothing but the gray. 

Which is… disconcerting. 

Not scary.

No. 

The pink haired hero does not feel afraid of the gray, of the blank, of the unknown. Does not feel fear sink it’s talons under his ribs and _yank_ , does not feel terror drip through his arteries as liquid ice, does not feel his heartbeat quicken or his breathing accelerate.

Legend doesn't feel afraid. 

Or, perhaps, “doesn’t” is the incorrect word.

Legend _can’t_ feel afraid. 

Where fear should be taking hold, building building building inside the longer he goes without a firm hold of the situation, Legend just feels… sort of empty. Hollow. Only able to muster up a vague sort of disquiet at his circumstances, rather than any stronger, more substantial emotion. 

He is in the gray.

It's a simple as that.

He is in the gray. In a place where nothing is everything. Wrong but not _too_ wrong.Like he has somehow slipped, fallen off kilter, and now exists in a place two inches to the right of reality. 

And so Legend accepts it. Accepts the wrongness, accepts the gray, accepts the expanse of nothing, and keeps walking.

Because that is all he can do. 

Keep walking and walking and walking.

Walking walking walking walking...

...

Running.

Legend is running.

Legend is running and running and running and suddenly the gray flies away from his vision and he is running up a grassy hill in the dead of night. Air is slicing in and out of his lungs, exhaustion, _three days worth of exhaustion_ , biting at his heels but he doesn’t let it stop him.

Doesn’t let it or his suddenly, much smaller, much slower legs stop him from running.

Because he is running for a reason.

Legend’s legs, his tiny, exhausted, childlike legs, carry him up over the crest of the hill faster than the Song of Soaring and…!

Legend can see the ranch. Can see Time and Malon’s ranch. Can see it glowing there in the hollow of the hills, nestled comfortably in the rolling green fields. Can see cows and horses milling in the dark, the windows of the house illuminated in warm orange, inviting in the night. 

He can practically smell freshly baked bread from here…

It fills Legend with joy. 

A joy that is not his own. 

And suddenly, his legs are no longer small, no longer those of a child. His legs are long and strong and world weary. Armor blooms around his body until he is encased, safe within a cradle of silver. His eye, _his left eye_ , aches terribly and so Legend lets it fall closed without much of a fight. 

Legend stands, tall and unbroken despite the years that never were and the three days that didn’t come to pass, and looks down onto his ranch, his house, his _home_ with a joy that isn’t his own.

And then it comes crashing down.

The Moon, that is. 

The Moon, the smiling Moon, the laughing Moon, the screaming– _crying_ Moon, it crashes down down down toward the ranch, a death rattle of high pitched giggles screeching into the night as it falls and illuminates the farm in an ever widening halo of deathly white.

And Legend is no longer a man.

He is a child.

He is a child in the body of a man. A child in armor he cannot hold up. A child who is too small for the shield on his back. A child who winces away from a sword that marks his destiny. 

Legend is a child who has never been out of the woods. A child who just wants his fairy, the closest thing he ever had to a mother. 

A child who has seen the moon fall too many times, a sickening melody playing again and again and again and again again again in his head on an unending loop

“Help.” Legend finds his lips moving, his throat whispering in a voice that is not his own. “Please. Someone. Help.” 

His body grows and shrinks and grows and shrinks back and forth back and forth, adult child adult child adult child, as fast as the ticking of a clock.

The giggling of the Moon looms closer, the whole valley lit up in white as meteorites rain down from above.

A horrible pain erupts over Legend's forehead, under his left eye, and paint–blue from his forehead, red from his cheeks– drips hotly down his face. 

The shrieking laugh and the blinding white reach a crescendo and Legend turns away, closing his eyes against the bright, unending light that leeks from the land, letting the clock tick down the last seconds of the universe.

Distantly, a bell tolls once.

Distantly, a bell tolls twice.

Distantly, a bell tolls–!

Legend can’t let the bell ring three times!!!!

The Veteran isn’t sure why that particular thought is so important, but he can feel that it is. He can feel it in his marrow, can feel it in his blood as it sings through his body, hot and angry and scared and not his own.

He can’t let the bell ring three times and so Legend runs.

Legend runs up cobblestone stairs on legs that are even smaller than the ones from before, slashes enemies with a sword the fits so perfectly in his hands it’s like it was made for him, feels magic surge through his veins as he stands on glowing tiles, and crashes headlong into hordes of enemies with three copies of himself by his side.

Legend runs and fights and splits and runs and fights and splits and splits and splits and splits. 

A final room, three darknuts baying for blood but Legend can’t stop now, no matter how broken he is starting to feel inside, no matter how much his own limbs, his own hands, his whole body feels foreign to him. 

No matter how much it hurts to split, to break and reform with splinters of himself catching at his skin, his heart, his brain, his soul.

He–they–he bursts through the final door and _there._

There is Zelda, skin made of stone and face frozen in an expression of unending fear with him, _Vaati,_ looming over her. Magic arcs between them, golden light spilling out of Zelda like she’s the sun only for each ray of pure gold to be consumed by the malevolent, violet blackholes of the Wind Mage’s spell.

And Legend… 

Legend sprints, putting everything that he is, every facet, every scattered fragment, _everything_ into running down this last stretch of land and…!

Purple consumes gold.

The bell tolls a third and final time.

And Vaati, flickering in the glow of his own dark power, rises. He rises as gale force winds pick up behind him, swirling around and around and around him, picking up speed alongside the mage’s maniacal laughter and then come slicing forward, cutting the very air they ride on as they scream toward Legend.

The winds buffet his face, biting into his cheekbones, shearing strands of golden hair from his head, slicing into his fingers as he tries to shield his eyes. 

And Zelda…

The statute that _was_ Zelda– _because Vaati took the Lightforce and her life force in one fell swoop, the two were inextricably connected, she-it-she is nothing but stone now,_ **_she’s gone, Dot’s gone_ ** – it falls to the ground and _shatters._

And as Legend watches the statue fly to pieces, he feels himself mirror it.

Mirror it as the winds return with a vengeance. 

Mirror it as they knock him over the edge of the castle. 

Mirror it as he falls like she fell. 

Mirror it as he hits the ground and–!

_Shattered._

The mirror.

The mirror is shattered. 

The mirror is shattered and so is Legend’s heart. 

The mirror is shattered and so is Legend’s heart and so is everything else. 

Shadow and Light are two sides of the same coin, they knew this, she knew this, he knew this, and yet, to protect her people, she shattered the last bridge holding the two together. 

And with it gone, the world of light began to break in the same way his heart and the mirror had. 

Legend blinks and he is outside Hyrule castle, watching as black lines begin to criss cross the cobble stone spires, hearing the shrieks of citizens rise as they notice the ground beneath their feet give way. 

Legend blinks and he is in Kakariko Village, observing fault lines appear on the side of the canyon, watching them widen widen widen as rocks and lava and searing geysers overtake the dusty hamlet. 

Legend blinks and his heart shatters further, sending fragments of pain and guilt and loss into his lungs because he is in Ordon Village. He is in Ordon Village, can smell the comforting scent of wind and river and tree, can feel the residual warmth of day fading from the bark, can distantly hear the sounds of the town settling down for the night and he _c_ _an do nothing to save them._

“Get out!” Legend screams, someone else’s voice ripping at his vocal chords as he howls, “Everyone get out, now!”

The heads of friends and family alike, of Sara, Fado, Bo, Iliya, Rusl, _Colin,_ turn to look at Legend but they do not react with fear. They do not scramble to follow his plea nor look at him with heavy resignation nor blooming realization nor incredulity. 

They look at him with anger. With hatred. 

And Legend is no longer a man. But a wolf. 

A wolf who howls uselessly to the people he loves most, a wolf who whines and whimpers as they close in on him with torches and swords, a wolf who cries as they surround him, none the wiser to the cracks in the universe that hound their every step. 

A final plea, a final howl that fills the empty stillness of twilight and the sound of shattering glass fills the air as the world crumbles to nothing but blackness. 

And Legend is alone. Like he always has been and always will be. 

Left alone by those he wishes to be with most in the world. 

And Legend falls. 

Legend falls and falls and falls and falls. 

Down down down down!

Images. 

Images, experiences, memories, fears, they fly past Legend as he falls, mixing together and shattering into a kaleidoscope of life and death and everything in between. 

He sees Zelda, not his own and yet _yes, his own,_ garbed in white, haloed in gold, as she bursts from the head of a beast that he somehow knows is Calamity Ganon _._

And he sees Zelda, the golden halo sullied, turning orange, no, red, no, _purple,_ her eyes finally snapping open to reveal molten irises and slitted pupils. She smiles at him with rows upon rows of needle thin teeth and holds out a hand, beckoning him closer and closer and _closer._

He sees the ocean and he sees the sky and knows both to be his home. He sees the ocean and he sees the sky and he watches as both are ravaged: the ocean flashing to a boil before it evaporates completely, revealing a cursed past that destroys any hope of a future. He sees the sky turning dark, tornadoes ripping apart the heavens as a floating island plummets into an awaiting maw of teeth and scales and darkness. 

He sees himself in a mirror, watches as his face becomes Sky and Four and Time and Twilight and Wind and Wild and Hyrule and himself but never anyone else. Watches as the mirror cycles through those eight faces faster and faster and faster and faster as a familiar blue scarf slithers around his body, around his neck, tying itself around his throat tighter and tighter and tighter and tighter, a shackle. A noose. An unavoidable destiny. 

He sees a Hyrule, not his own and yet _so close it hurts._ He sees it, sees hills of green, sees villages, small yet strong, and people. Hardy people who have faced the horrors of the world time and time again and who still open their home to a boy who has spent more days outdoor than in. 

And he sees a Hyrule, the hills stained red red red, fires blazing over fields, over villages, over people. Sees red red red everywhere, clinging to him as he falls, hot heavy cloying iron that chokes and chokes and chokes, he can’t breathe, _he can't breathe,_ the darkness is closing in, someone, _anyone, please, hel–!_

Legend wakes up. 

Legend wakes up, his heart racing, his blood pumping, and his lungs struggling to pull in breaths not contaminated by the dying fire he sits before. 

...

Right. 

He was supposed to be on watch. 

Not falling asleep. 

Not…

Well. 

Not doing what he just did. 

The Veteran hero adjusts himself in his seat, settling in on the log as the sound of shifting bodies grows behind him. Groans, sobs, whimpers of pain unreal and fear that touches too close to reality, echo behind him in the night. 

Legend ignores them. Ignores them all. 

He’s done enough “helping” for tonight. 

Knowing him and his track record with dreams, he would only make it worse.

 _Well_ , Legend thinks, guilt clawing at him as he hears one of the voices behind him raise from a sniffle to a sob, no sign of stopping anytime soon, _Worse than he already had._

**Author's Note:**

> So basically, I guessed that the prompt was "Nightmares" and sort of latched onto the idea that Legend can walk through people's dreams sort of from the perspective of the dreamer. Thus, this weird sort of stream of consciousness / ramble-y thing was born!
> 
> Still not 100% satisfied with this one, but *shrugs* it was interesting to write to say the least! Hope it wasn't too incoherent!
> 
> Thanks once again to the conductors of the train, 9dl, Quali, and Blue, without which this wouldn't exist! Thanks so much for all your hard work! I'm sure people are absolutely thrilled with the results
> 
> As always, stay safe out there guys!


End file.
